Imperial Assault - Rebel Scum

Finally after the simpler gaming pieces for the game master I turned my attention to the figures representing the player characters. At least to those for needed in our local group:

First for Fenn Signis. He's a veteran soldier of the rebel forces and a real professional. He has a gun which is able to fire explosive projectiles and is ready to spoil the day for the Empire. In our campaign he's played by peaceful Mrs Monty:

As all of the characters I tried to have him as close at the artwork as possible. This I gave him a khaki battledress with some brown and blackish pieces of equipment.

Then Diala Passil. Obviously she's some kind of Jedi padavan. With her experience points she can acquire several classic force abilities like the force push and the light saber throw. Unfortunately for her she has to garner that iconic weapon in a special side mission that is not mandatory. It may happen that the players in the campaign don't get the chance to play it or are not able to win it. Both means no lightsaber for Diala...

Nevertheless I wanted to give her weapon an idea of focussed light and energy. Not too easy on a round rod. Thus I decided to chose two perspectives to apply a whitish blue colour scheme on. Unfortunately from a 90° side view the lightsaber is straight blue only. Very difficult was the Twi'lek girls skin since I didn't have much experience with other skin tones the simple Caucasian.

Third Jyn Odan. She's a smuggler and somehow the younger and female incarnation of Han Solo. Jyn is quick with her blaster and very nimble. Hard to catch for those troops loyal to the Emperor:

Actually a straight forward paintjob. Her facial expression was hard to get because a nasty mold line ran over the right part of her face. Aside from that nothing too special with this figure.

Last but not least Mak Eshka'rey who we tend to simply call 'donkey'. Actually this nickname isn't fair since he's anything but a donkey. Mak is a Bothan and some of his congeners gathered greatres, rebellious glory with obtaining the plans for the second Death Star.

Here I stayed again as close to the artwork as I was able to. Thus Mak received a green battlesuit and some blackish equipment. The only variance I applied on purpose are the brown gloves because I realised that gun and gloves of the same colour don't look that interesting.

From my Imperial Assault collection those were the figures I took the most time for. They have wonderful dynamic poses as all of the miniatures from the basic game and even unpainted they show a good bunch of detail. The artworks are represented perfectly and they are full of heroic character.

But unfortunately those details are outworked very, very thin. On the one hand that underlines the high casting quality but on the other hand it doesn't make painting them easy. Even under thin layers of paint tiny details like Diala's bandages nearly vanish. It's not possible to let the paintbrush follow them on it's own. You really have to spot each and every detail and work it out on your own. Additionally the figures come preassembled which makes sense to be able to play the game on the spot. But usually I'd prefer to paint figures like Mak and Fenn that are holding guns in front of their bodies partly before assembling. Especially removing mold line in much easier then which turned to be rather painful with those figures here.

Don't get me wrong I don't want to talk the quality of those figures to death. They are almost perfect board games pieces. But painting them exposed some disadvantages compared to those excellent historic miniatures we are used to. That wouldn't keep me from painting them or any other figures from the Imperial Assault range but I came to the decision to suit my efforts to these parameters. I tried to paint them as nice board gaming pieces as good as I was able to. But I didn't try to bring as much blood, sweat and tears into them as into those 72nd Highlanders for example.

Now there are only two further characters and Luke Skywalker to paint from the basic set. Most probably some few additional miniatures from expansions will join. Most likely a well-known Wookie who served as co-pilot on a certain, rather fast 'hunk of junk'. Anyway those chaps will hit the painting table during the next weeks. Now I'm really keen on finishing the last figures of my current Imperial Assault collection. It'll be a completely new experience for your's truly to finish a project or at least to reach a satisfying intermediate goal with no further unpainted figures...